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Is it hot out here? Is my heart pounding extra hard? Wait. Am I … attracted to the worst human to ever live?
I hold two fingers up to my neck to take my pulse, then remember that of course I’m hot and my heart is pounding. I’ve run more in the last five minutes than I have in the last five years combined. Which means, I haven’t inexplicably gone completely and utterly insane. Phew!
Okay, back to the problem at hand. I need clothes, hiking boots, a toothbrush, and a whole bunch of other shit so I can go on this trip. Glancing around, I see a man who I’m pretty sure is our guide based on the fact that he’s standing next to the shuttle bus door holding a clipboard. He’s wearing a golf shirt, cargo pants, and a name tag that says, ‘I’m your Tour Guide, Thiago. How can I help?’
Oh, thank God. Someone who wants to help. Things are looking up already.
His smile fades as soon as I’m close enough to smell. “You must be Gwendolyn Fox,” he says. “Our straggler.”
Straggler? That makes it sound like I’ve been just moseying around the airport chatting people up. I pant and nod at him. “The airline lost my backpack and a baby threw up on me and I had to run all the way here,” I say, holding my side to soothe the horrible stitch in it.
“Why would you check your bag? They always lose checked bags.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Obviously, I’m smart enough to know you don’t check your bag if you don’t have to. “I didn’t check it.” Pant, pant. “They ran out of room in the overhead bins and asked for volunteers to put their bags under the plane.” Pant. “Anyway, it’s lost and I only have this … outfit, and it’s covered in baby vomit so I need some time to go buy some clothes and hiking shoes and toiletries.”
He shakes his head. “No time. We must leave now so we can do the first activity before dark.”
“But I’m?—”
He holds up one hand. “There are stores where we’re going. You can shop there.” Lifting a whistle to his lips, he blows it so loudly, my eyes are vibrating. “Everyone! Our straggler is here. Get on the shuttle bus.”
“Wait, where are we?—?”
“No clues. Dr. Napper wanted all surprises to be surprises, which means you won’t know where we are going until we get there. Now, hurry up because we need to get to the other airport where the helicopters are waiting.” He balls up his fist and shakes his head, looking annoyed with himself. “Stupid, Thiago. You weren’t supposed to say that.”
I hurry onto the bus and make my way to the back, hoping that whoever gets stuck next to me has no sense of smell. Settling myself onto a seat by the window, I watch as everyone gets on and selects their seats, a lot of them seeming chummy already. A couple of other participants come close to sitting next to me, then wince and move to other spots on the bus. I can’t blame them though. I am ripe.
Mr. Sterling gets on and immediately several hands go up and I hear offers for him to, “Come sit here.”
Let the sucking up begin. It’s just all so disgusting. And the worst part is I’m going to have to do it too. I picture myself motioning at him with my finger. Come sit by me, you big, strong, hot piece of man candy. Blech! No! Never.
Not right now, anyway. I’m not going to be winning any points with him smelling like I do. Lucky for me (and him, I suppose), he chooses a seat halfway down the aisle with an empty seat next to him. The disappointment in the air is palpable. As is the desperation. But I’m hardly one to judge—I’m every bit as desperate as these other people. Women. I’m desperate as all these other women. Now that I look around, there are only a handful of men—Thiago, the devil, Niles Something-or-other from the ghost busters group, and Rohan, Dr. Napper’s faithful assistant who appears in lots of his videos. Allie was right. All the groups did exactly the same thing. Sent hotties. Not that I’m a hottie. I’m not unattractive, you know, for a science geek. But if this whole thing did come down to the power of seduction, I’d definitely lose to most of these women. First of all, I don’t want to seduce him, which I imagine will be fairly obvious to him. Second, it’s not like I’m exactly experienced in successfully hitting on guys. I’ve had exactly three boyfriends—one in college and two since. In all three cases, they were the ones who asked me out.
The bus starts up and I sit back in my seat listening in to various conversations, tuning my ears into different ones as we embark on our journey. Shameless flirting with Mr. Sterling by a woman across the aisle from him. I recognize her to be part of the ‘parapsychology’ team (which is totally not a real field of study no matter what they want everyone to think). He has already completely tuned her out and is staring intently at his phone. Rude. I can totally understand why, but still—because it’s him, rude.
Thiago’s voice comes over the audio system. “Good afternoon, everyone. Who’s feeling good?”
A spattering of low murmurs can be heard around the bus.
“Okay, I get it,” he says. “You are sad because the world has lost a great man. I am also sad, even though I didn’t know him. But I’m an empath so I feel your pain. You wish you could still touch him and hug him and hear his voice and see his smile.” He pauses, then says, “The good news is, Dr. Napper will be with us for the entire adventure.”
He holds up an ornate gold urn.
“Sweet Jesus,” Mr. Sterling mutters.
“He’s not only in here, but he has also recorded videos for us. So, even though we can’t hug him or touch him or smell him, we can see him and hear him.”
My jaw drops as my brain begins to process what Thiago is saying.
“We’ll watch the first video after we get to today’s location. Dr. Napper didn’t want you to miss the sights of this vibrant and beautiful city,” Thiago says. “So, make yourselves comfortable and try to relax a little because you’re about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.”
I stare out the window for a minute, watching the buildings whip by, listening to the conversation happening in front of me. One row up, three women are talking in low voices. “Do you have all of them?” one asks.
“No. Just the hepatitis. But what are the chances we’re even going to come into contact with some of those other diseases?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping there will be zero chance.”
“Like, who even gets rubella anymore anyway? Have you ever heard of anyone who got it?”
